Yunior García Aguilera is a Cuban actor, playwright, and activist, founder of Trébol Teatro and the Facebook group Archipiélago. He was born in Holguín, Cuba in 1982.
His long and solid theater career began when he was only in fourth grade, writing and acting alongside classmates. In his hometown of Holguín, he joined the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS), which allowed him to gain experience and publish his works. He took on the artistic direction of the theater company Alas Buenas, whose play, Sangre, was awarded seven prizes at the National Festival of Small Format in Santa Clara.
At the age of 17, he enrolled in the National School of Art (ENA), specializing in acting. In 2003, he founded the Trébol Teatro project along with young actors graduates from ENA, aiming to create a unique narrative and an innovative creative space. That same year, he completed his studies at the ISA (Higher Institute of Art) as an actor, graduating with honors.
He has written scripts for television and film. Cerdo (Fiction short film made in 2018) was presented at the 40th edition of the Latin American International Film Festival.
Yunior was one of the main figures of the November 27, 2020 (27N) protests that took place in front of the Ministry of Culture (MINCULT) by a group of artists, intellectuals, activists, and the general public following the events that occurred at the San Isidro Movement headquarters the night before. On November 26, the police evicted the young people who had barricaded themselves in that headquarters in order to demand the government's release of the rapper Denis Solís González. Some of them had also been on hunger strike for several days.
From this peaceful demonstration, a group was democratically elected to meet with the Deputy Minister of Culture, Fernando Rojas, and other government representatives. The goal was to engage in a dialogue to reach agreements that would respect creative freedoms, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press, as well as to put an end to the repression of artists whose work diverges from the official message established by the Cuban regime. Yunior was part of the group along with Katherine Bisquet, Tania Bruguera, Camila Acosta, and others.
The playwright made headlines again due to the events that occurred in Cuba on July 11, 2021 (11J) when people across the island spontaneously took to the streets in a historic protest against living conditions, government mismanagement, and a lack of freedoms. He was peacefully protesting alongside other young artists outside the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) when they were violently forced into a garbage truck by State Security agents.
Subsequently, he was transferred to the Vivac prison in Arroyo Naranjo and released days later under a precautionary measure that prevented him from going out on the street. From his home, García Aguilera became one of the most prominent faces of this social upheaval. He granted interviews to numerous international media outlets, both print and television, in which he advocated for the Cuban people's right to build a different country while denouncing the violent repression that resulted in several disappearances and the unjust imprisonment of over 600 protesters.
In July 2021, the Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez published a statement questioning the police repression against the protesters during the events of July 11. Yunior responded to Silvio with a post on his social media that quickly went viral, in which he asked the musician for 15 minutes of dialogue. A few days later, this meeting took place at the Ojalá studios of the troubadour.
García Aguilera defines himself as "a civic artist who wants to build a better country where his son can stand up for what he thinks without facing violence on the streets and can think freely without having to emigrate". He does not see himself as a politician but as "a citizen driving ideas who wants to transform his reality and advocates for a horizontal leadership, based on consensus, where collective intelligence prevails and power and decisions do not rest on a single figure."*(1)
On August 9, 2021, Archipiélago was created, a Facebook group with over 23,000 followers that aims to give a voice to all Cubans who want to build a new Cuba, without excluding the exile or the diaspora, while also establishing concrete objectives for that construction.
Those objectives are:
1. Fight for the liberation of all the individuals who were detained on July 11, 2021.
2. Attempt to carry out the first peaceful anti-government demonstration authorized with all legal guarantees, without repression or violent incidents.
3. Call for a plebiscite with all guarantees under the 2019 constitution that allows the sovereign will of the Cuban people to be decided at the polls.
In September 2021, Archipiélago requested authorization from the Government to march against violence in Havana on November 20. In the following days, other provinces on the island submitted similar requests to their respective Provincial Government offices, thereby joining the call.
Like other activists, Yunior has been besieged in his own home, preventing him from moving freely. He has been interrogated multiple times by State Security officials and is a victim of daily harassment by the repressive forces, even being monitored by up to eight agents at once.
On October 4, 2021 the Center for Studies on the Rule of Law, Cuba Próxima, announced the addition of the playwright to its Deliberative Council.
Source:
(1) and (2) taken from Proyecto Archipiélago, interview with Mónica Baró, August 13, 2021, 23yFlagler
